Periodic Charges and Services
Periodic Services and Charges are templates which are used to generate repeat jobs and charges at almost any interval. They are a powerful part of your Smart billing system.
Periodic Services and Periodic Charges are very similar, except that when they are generated Periodic Services appear in the Job Despatch window and require operator completion before being submitted for invoicing, while Periodic Charges go straight to the 'Approve Items for Invoicing' window. Access to Periodic Charges windows is more limited than for Periodic Services.
Creating a Periodic Service or Charge
Access the list of Periodic Services by clicking on the button on the 'Getting Around Smart' window, or by selecting \Operations \Periodic Services from the Main Menu.
Access the list of Periodic Charges by clicking on the button on the 'Getting Around Smart' window, or by selecting \Accounts \Customers \Periodic Charges from the Main Menu.
- To filter the view (for example, to show only periodics for a specified customer), click on the appropriate left button. To clear your selection and see periodics for all customers again, press the same button.
- Select 'Current' in the 'Display' box to exclude periodics where the 'Cancelled' box has been checked, or the periodic is not active because of the setting of the Suspended, Commenced, or Terminated dates. Select 'Inactive' to see only inactive jobs.
- Press the 'Print' button to print one or more periodics. You will be asked whether you want to print only the highhighted periodic, or all periodics in the current view.
- Press the 'Copy' button to either
- create a new periodic based on the highlighted periodic, or
- copy selected fields (for example, the service provider) from the highlighted periodic to the other periodics in the view.
- To sort the view, click on the label at the top of a column. Sorting is not available for all columns.
Right click on an entry for adding and updating options. To view an existing entry you can also double click on it, right click or highlight it and press the Enter key. To add an entry, you can also press the Insert key. Operator access is defined in the Operator Configuration window.
Dates and Rates
| Frequency |
Every Day: Generates every
day |
| Next |
The charge or service will be generated on this date and this date will appear as the Received date (and for Services, the Scheduled Date). Once the charge or service has been generated the date is rolled forward.
|
| To cover period from/to |
These dates are shown in the Service Details section of the invoice. They are also used when calculating the charge for a part period (see Suspend, Commence, Terminate). Usually you would set these dates to cover the full period, e.g. for a monthly charge you could set the dates to the first and last day of the month. Smart calculates these dates for you when you select a frequency. |
| Suspend from/to |
Setting these dates suspends the charge or service for the date range shown and adjusts the price accordingly. If a From date is specified with no To date this suspends the charge or service indefinitely. (Using Terminate may be more appropriate, see below.) If a To date is specified with no From date this suspends the charge or service immediately, until the To date. See the section Price calculation for part periods, below for further information. |
| Commence | Specifying a Commence date commences charging from that date. If necessary a partial charge or service will be generated for the period containing the Commence date. See also Price calculation for part periods, below. |
| Terminate | Specifying a Terminate date terminates charging at that date. If necessary a partial charge or service will be generated for the period containing the Terminate date. See also Price calculation for part periods, below. It is not necessary to check the Cancelled box. This will be checked automatically after Smart has generated any remaining charges or services. |
| Cancelled |
Check this box to cancel generation of this charge or service immediately. No further generation will take place, regardless of any other setting. In most cases, you will enter a Terminate date rather than check this box. Entering a Terminate date will ensure that Smart calculates and bills for any outstanding part periods. It also gives you a visual record of the date the charge or service was cancelled. Smart will automatically check the Cancelled box once there are no more charges or services to generate. |
| Start at/after | Specify the time (if any) the service is due (this is usually not relevant for charges). This time is used as the Received Time (and for Services, the Scheduled Time) for the charge or service. |
| Repeat ... times | Repeat the service this number of times. Only used for Patrols (see below). |
| O/No | Order number (if any) provided by the client. This order number appears on the generated service or charge. |
| Ref |
Customer reference. If anything is entered here it may be used as the job number for generated charges and services, depending on the setting in the General Configuration window (Periodics tab, 'Customer Ref as Job Ref'). It appears prefaced by the words 'Our Reference: ' in the service details for a Charge. |
| Charge Customer |
The amount ex GST to charge the customer (GST is calculated and applied at generate time). The customer pricing for a charge or service can be modified after generation by an operator with the appropriate access level. If the charge specified here is $0, the price may be calculated at generation time depending on your system configuration. If the generated service is despatched by an operator who changes the details, the price will be adjusted automatically. For this reason, service pricing (as opposed to charge pricing) should be set up in the Customer Rate window (press the $ button next to the customer, at the top of this window). |
| Pay Contractor/ Split |
The amount ex GST to pay the contractor, if any (GST is calculated and applied at generate time). The contractor pricing for a charge or service can be modified after generation by an operator with the appropriate access level. If the charge specified here is $0, the price may be calculated at generation time depending on your system configuration. If the generated service is despatched by an operator who changes the details, the price will be adjusted automatically. For this reason, service pricing (as opposed to charge pricing) should be set up in the Customer Rate window (press the $ button next to the customer, at the top of this window). |
| Holiday Surcharge |
The amount(s) entered here will be added to the Customer Charge or Contractor Payment for each public holiday which falls between the Period From and To dates. The amounts and any GST are calculated at generate time. If no charge or payment is to apply on a public holiday, enter a negative amount here and it will be subtracted from the normal charge for this period. To specify public holidays, choose \Maintenance \Smart Setup \Public Holidays from the Main Menu. |
| Division | Specify the Division for the generated Charge or Service. Depending on your system configuration, Divisions might be called something else. |
| Do Not Generate Charge or Service | If this box is checked no charge or service is generated (the dates are rolled forward, however). You can use this facility for items which are not being billed or despatched in Smart but which are to appear on a service provider runsheet, e.g. patrols. |
Price calculation for part periods
If a part period applies (because the charge or service commences after the start of the period, ends before the end of the period, or is suspended for part of the period) Smart calculates a revised price for the charge or service.
(If the charge or service is suspended for the entire period, nothing is generated.)
There are two slightly different methods for calculating pricing for part periods (the difference is approximately 1%). To choose a method, change the setting in the General Configuration window, Periodics tab, Part Periods.
- Credit off service - Customer receives credit for time off service at average daily rate (favours you)
- Charge on service - Customer is charged only for time on service at daily rate (favours customer)
Service Details tab
| Control Room |
Determines which control room the charge or service is attributed to (only applicable if your system is set up with more than one control room). The term 'Control Room' may be replaced by another term, depending on your system configuration. |
| Instructions / Invoice Detail | Anything entered here appears in the Service Details for the generated service or charge. |
| Don't print above details on Invoice | If checked, the 'Print on Invoice' checkbox on the Job Details window (Service Details tab) is cleared so that the Service Details do not appear on the invoice. |
| Use Fixed Width Font | Uses a fixed width font when displaying or printing service details for this Periodic Charge or Service or jobs generated by it. Use this if you are entering details in columns (e.g. a series of labour shifts) so that the columns will be displayed correctly. |
| Enter Daily Hours | Brings up a window allowing quick entry of daily hours. You must enter dates in this window in order to generate entries. Usually (unless the charge or service is a Once Only) after closing this window you would edit the Instructions / Invoice Detail field and replace the dates with days of the week. |
| Internal Notes | Anything entered here appears in the Internal Notes field of the Job Details window for the generated charge or service. |
| Include in Operational Reports |
The following reports have the option to include only periodic charges or services which have this box checked :
Use this if you generate run sheets based on periodic charge or service entries rather than the charges and services generated by them. |
| Big Notes | Provides a much larger window for the entry of Internal Notes (see above). |
Patrols
Details of Patrols are entered on the Patrols tab. The patrols tab is displayed if the Service Type for the Service selected contains the word 'Patrol' or the System Configuration Service Type setting Periodic Details / Show Patrols tab is set to 'Yes' for this service type.
Click here for further information.
Guards
Details of Patrols are entered on the Patrols tab. The patrols tab is displayed if the System Configuration Service Type setting Periodic Details / Show Guards tab is set to 'Yes' for this service type.
For further information see the Guard
Scheduling section.
Other
Pressing the Generated Items button displays a list of charges or services generated by this Periodic. Double click on an entry to see further details.
Press the Change History button displays a history of operator changes for this Periodic.
Generating Periodic Charges and Services
To generate the jobs and charges which will appear in the the despatch window and/or the Approve Items for Invoicing window, press the Generate button on the list of Periodic Charges or Services.
This window will appear:
You can also set up automatic generation (or limit access) in the General Configuration window. This window also has options to display the date range covered by the charge or service, and show the number of services.
It's a good idea to generate periodics daily so that you don't miss anything. The options in the above window allow you to select whether to generate for the next day or night shift (if periodics are generated automatically, charges or services due up to midnight tomorrow will be generated).
If you miss generating for a few days, Smart will generate as many services or charges as necessary to catch up. For example if you specified a service frequency of daily but didn't generate periodics for a week, the next time you generated you would see 7 services generated. If you accidentally enter an old date (say, a century back) Smart will generate a maximum of 100 charges or services in an attempt to get up to date.
Duplicate charges and services won't be generated, so if you choose to generate more than once on the same day there is no risk of generating the same service or charge more than once.
You can safely generate periodics more than once on the same day without generating duplicate services or charges. Only periodics added or changed between generations which are now due will be generated.
© Skorpion Pty Ltd 2007